


Heart's Echo

by Argyle



Category: Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Genre: Community: contrelamontre, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-28
Updated: 2005-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-20 23:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1528952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is to be a mortal, and seek the things beyond mortality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart's Echo

_From the Diary of Henry Clerval_  
  
9 November. --   
  
It is now past midnight, and I write from within the study of my friend.  
  
The day has been most eventful, moreso than I could ever have supposed.  
  
I was not disappointed by my arrival in Ingolstadt -- the town was much as I had imagined it, and I felt welcomed by the white steeple and the wide red bricks of the university, that bastion of humanity -- but I was most eager to meet with Frankenstein.  
  
As my carriage rattled onward, I could not help but allow my gaze to fall upon on each face that I passed for hope of discovering my dear friend. Imagine my joy when I saw his form lingering in a doorway, at once familiar and not familiar. For it was he who I longed to embrace without a moment’s hesitation, and he whose hand I shook as we stood together in the street, but his shoulders, once so proud and broad, were stooped as though bearing the weight of some monumental knowledge; his clothes were of the finest cut, but they were also wrinkled and dotted with soot and I know not what else.  
  
I cannot say how it troubled me to see him in such a state. He greeted me with his usual warmth and attention, but his voice seemed faintly cracked, his words at times hushed and halting. His cheek was wan, his eyes were wide and half-mad as he raised a hand to shield them from the morning sun, and his step was quick but without vigor.  
  
“It is so good to see you, Victor,” I said. “My only hope is that you are not unwell.”  
  
“I am as well as can be expected.” He seemed to tremble, and he glanced over his shoulder before continuing, “The horror of my deeds has not yet faded from the present, nor will it ever.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I have drawn my own destiny, and now I need only to wait.”  
  
“Your hints,” I said mischievously, “are intriguing in the extreme.”  
  
“Indeed?” Victor did not return my smile. “Forgive me, Henry. Forgive me.”  
  
“Do not trouble yourself, my friend.” I took his hand with care. It was cold and slick with sweat, but his grip was strong. “I am sorry we have been distant from each other for so long, but know that I am here for you now.”  
  
He looked into my eyes wonderingly. “Thank you.”  
  
And so it was that I came to tell Victor of his family, of our friends in Geneva, and my own great fortune at having persuaded my father to permit my attendance at university. I was puzzled that he should speak so little of his own studies, though by the sight of the books which stood in towering stacks throughout his rooms, I knew that he had found enthusiasm for them.  
  
He grew nervous upon our entry into his bedroom, soon seeming to near the point of falling into a swoon, but he busied himself by pouring two cups of tea.  
  
“Do you still take milk?” he asked.  
  
“Yes, of course.” I stood by his bookcase and glanced over the unusual titles -- many related to galvanism and the principle of life, topics which fascinate me, though I know rather little about them -- and as I set my hand upon a sheaf of his papers, curious to gain understanding of his activities, Victor was at my side.  
  
“Here you are.” The cup shook with his precarious anxiety, thin china clinking against thin china, and it might have fallen to the ground had I not taken it from him. I saw that the tea had spilled onto his hand, though he dried it on his trousers rather than troubling himself to search for a towel; his own cup was left unattended on the desk.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
There was a faint tang of acid upon the air, of fixing fluids and something else which brought to mind nothing if not a mausoleum. The curtains were drawn, and so I wrenched them apart in attempt to dispel the gloom. My friend cried out at this, clearly anticipating the formation of some great plume of dust, and then he laughed.  
  
He laughed.  
  
His frame shook mercilessly, boundlessly; it shook with such force that he wrapped his arms across his chest, perhaps fearing that his limbs might loosen and take flight with the harsh, swelling timber of his voice. Tears ran down his cheeks, and his eyes shone greener with their gleam, his brow more sanguinary. He raked a hand through his hair, which appeared wind-willed at best, and breathed heavily.  
  
“Henry,” he said, and I came to him.  
  
The events of the past were upon me in an instant. My thoughts flew with the motion of a leaf caught within a gyre, tumbling through space as the embers of my memory grew flushed, unburdened by the eye of the hawk. I saw our friendship and the hour of our last goodbye; our time apart seemed to hold the substance of a dream upon waking, briefly rising and receding as with the pull of the tide, the dawn of the new day.  
  
Had it really been years? No, Victor’s lips answered as they pressed against my own, it could not have been. His hands came to settle on my chest, long fingers finding the buttons of my jacket and soon pulling them apart. I must have gasped, for I saw mirth in his eyes, and I knew only the sound of my own pulse.  
  
It seemed that there was no dent upon my heart that Victor could not mend, no flash of lightning within my eyes that he did not seize.  
  
“Henry, my Henry,” he sighed against my back, teeth scraping the flesh of my shoulder. His words were a benediction, a spectre that served to draw my eyes from the moonlight; his words were an intimation, and we rose ever higher and then tumbled towards completion.  
  
Afterwards, we lay together in the darkness, our forms heavy and seeped of energy. “This is to be a mortal,” said he, and a shadow seemed to pass across his features.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
Victor did not answer, but his eyes were no longer impenetrable in their breadth, and I could glimpse sadness and self-loathing there. Slowly, he shook his head. “It is done.”  
  
The room was still but for the ticking of the clock, the occasional shifting of boards, and the fluttering of papers with the draft. I enfolded him in my arms, soothing his trepidations, and hours passed.  
  
I continue to consider his words, analyzing and debating, but find nothing that will lead me to some semblance of the truth, no key with which to unlock his mystery. I again recall the worrying pallor of his face, his tone upon meeting me this morning, the illness of his demeanor as it continued through the evening.  
  
He sleeps now, feverishly. How he moans! My blood quickens in my veins at the sound, and I fear that there will be no solace for either of us.  
  
My candle grows fickle; I cannot say what tidings the dawn will bring.


End file.
